


After Re-Training

by rosecat13



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-15
Updated: 2013-11-15
Packaged: 2018-01-01 15:24:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosecat13/pseuds/rosecat13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Rookie has been re-trained he is dropped on Carlos's doorstep, as was promised earlier by the prompts Carlos fought through. Cecil and he patch up the police officer, to some extent of success.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Re-Training

**Author's Note:**

> Based on interactions between @NVSSP_Rookie, @NightValeSciFi, and @actual_cecil. Again, fantastic twitter rpers.

He’s left on the doorstep like a broken toy, limbs askew and everything ripped. He knew this was part of it. Maybe it was an extra warning to the scientist, but for the most part it was just added shame for himself. Apparently, Carlos had made far too many calls using the word he had given him. His superiors were less than amused. Extra punishment was in order.

Carlos opens the door and when he sees Rookie, a series of emotions flashes before the officer’s eyes. Recognition, shock, fear, pity. Contempt was stuck in there somewhere, maybe it was glazed over the others; a garnish. He blinks, imagining a shutter clicking as his eyes close and open, a freeze-frame account of the scientist finding him. Somewhere miles away, the pictures pop up on a screen, one by one, of a man leaning down, his brow furrowed, evidence of sleepless nights clear on his face.

Rookie is tired. Correction; he is exhausted. He does not know how many hours have passed, he only understands that he is tired, and fed up, and he wants to sleep, and forget, and forget some more. Flashes of previous days rocket in front of his eyes and he shuts them tight. Black and silver, flashes of people, more masks, like his. His clones. His people. The recruited.

“Rookie?” Carlos moves to push the glasses off the man’s face and a weak yet determined grip holds onto his wrist. “No no… come on, you’re bleeding. Stop that. I said stop it.” Carlos easily extricates his hand and grasps the man’s limb, fingers curled around the white mesh that covered his forearm. “Stop it.” His face is hard and Rookie sits up a bit only to be reminded of the bite of a bat on his back, and he doesn’t wince in pain. Good officers don’t flinch; he was going to be better now. Carlos puts a warm hand on his back and he looks up at him, questioning. A few more snapshots for the boys back home. The air’s cold and tinged with void, so thick that he can see the shadow-people creeping into the corners of his vision when Carlos’s hand slips under his knees.

“Carlos?” A familiar, lilting, velvet-coated voice calls from within the house. “Carlos what is it..?”

“Rookie.” Carlos grunts and with a good amount of effort, lifts the man up into his arms. There is a moment of tension that quickly passes when Carlos locks eyes with him, the man’s glasses slipping down his nose.  The scientist carries the man inside.

Cecil, standing near the entrance to the kitchen, looks on with worried eyes. “Oh no,” he breathes. “How badly is he hurt?”

“It’s not like I’m not conscious,” Rookie’s breath is a bit raspy, but it works well it enough. Carlos grimaces at the sound and the officer’s lips curl up at the edges. The scientist valiantly refuses the urge to hit him. Carlos adjusts the man in his arms.

“You need help?” Cecil crosses the space, one of Carlos’s many lab coats a bit too big on his figure, but the sleeves too short to accommodate his longer frame. “Are you alright?” He asks Rookie, and the officer affords The Voice a smile.

“I’m fine.”

Carlos shakes his head and mouths the word “liar” at Cecil. “Let’s get him to the bathroom, and I’ll see if there’s anything I can patch up.”

There was plenty to patch up. The cold tile of the bathroom is covered in two pairs of feet, the officer set up on the counter. Cecil helps to steady him and Carlos inspects, the man all the while attempting to get the pair of dark hands off him. Exposed skin glows purple and blue under the fluorescent lighting, revealing the damage done to his corporeal being.

“Extensive bruising,” Carlos murmurs, “blunt force trauma. Cracked rib here,” Rookie shies away from the touch as the man places a hand on his chest, “and other than that, just… bruising.”

“From what I heard, that’s not nearly as bad as it could have been.” Rookie keeps his eyes on Cecil. The Voice’s hands on him, supporting him.  He chances it and accepts the touch. Everything is hypersensitive, everything around him is too much, and too loud. “Is he going to be okay, Carlos?”

Carlos nods, “Si. Of course. His blood pressure is elevated… heart rate is higher than the average man, but I don’t really know his baseline. No real way to tell. Ah, could you get the aspirin, then we-”

“How about you go get the aspirin?” Rookie says. It’s the first thing he’s said since they got him into the bathroom besides, “get off” and “this is prohibited under law 659 subsection E”, and it gives Carlos the perfect chance to sneer.

“Go on Carlos, I’ve got him…”

Carlos makes a point of leaning to the side and kissing Cecil’s cheek, looking at Rookie as he does it. He exits, heading towards the medicine cabinet where he’ll get the aspirin and spend a couple minutes considering whether or not to slip the officer a sleeping pill.

“Carlos will take good care of you,” Cecil tells him. “He fixed me up, and he’ll fix you up too… he was worried. He was ready to come after you, you know. He had this bag and told me something about having explosives-” Rookie isn’t really listening. He’s just looking him over and taking in the feel the long, slender fingers against his now-bare arms. The Voice was a source of comfort for all who lived in Night Vale, and all of his attentions were focused on him. Rookie had done a good deed. He paid for it. There’s a pause in Cecil’s soothing and Rookie refocuses his senses to hear, managing to catch, “-thank you.”

Rookie doesn’t know how to respond. He shouldn’t be thanked for doing such a horrible thing. Lying to the SSP. They knew all. They saw all.

Carlos returns and there’s just the aspirin in hand. Rookie takes it, swallowing it down unceremoniously. The pairs of eyes remind the officer of how exposed he is, hair sticking to his head and unshaven chin jutting out into the tepid air of the small house, if one could call it that. The air was tainted with chemicals, and he takes a moment to wonder whether or not Carlos has replaced the equipment he shattered after the liaison.

“I can stand,” he says when Carlos goes to pick him up again. He was done acting weak. He wasn’t, really. It was practically courtesy, allowing the man to carry him inside. There was no need for that. He eases himself off the counter but stumbles forward on a sprained ankle. When had that happened? It didn’t matter; a broad arm had caught him, making his chest ache but he guesses that it was better than falling.

Cecil is already sitting on the bed when he’s practically thrown on it. “Be gentle,” The Voice chastises, “he’s hurt, worse than I am.”

“Mhm.” Carlos sits between the two, and Cecil is quick to curl to the man’s side, his head resting on his thigh. Carlos smiles at him and Rookie watches as he shifts down, and Cecil’s blond hair splays over the blue corded sweater that the scientist is sporting, ear resting over his heart. “You stole my lab coat,” he says, and Cecil hums softly as the man’s fingers comb over his scalp.

“You have plenty of others.” Cecil leans up and steals a kiss. Rookie blinks. Another picture, evidence he’d rather not capture. Not for the sake of their privacy. He just doesn’t like looking at it, most of the time.

“What if that one was my favorite?”

“I’m your favorite,” Cecil counters, and Carlos laughs. Blink. Another snapshot. Rookie’s head aches with the effort of staying awake, but he manages it.  Carlos turns his head to him, and instead of saying something snippy, pulls the covers over him. They’re cool but soft against his skin, so different from his own. They’ll warm with time. Wind buffets the exterior of the lab, and Carlos looks up to the other room at the sound of test tubes chittering against the metal that held them. Cecil sighs happily, “ I love you, Carlos. Mm… goodnight, Carlos and Rookie, goodnight.”

Carlos murmurs, “Te amo dulcito, suenas dulces,” and punctuates it with a smooth caress of his boyfriend’s cheek.

An hour and thirty minutes later, Cecil is fast asleep, facing the other way. His breaths are even and deep, telling the scientist that there are dreams or void in his mind, not the nightmares that plague him. Carlos carefully removes himself from the bed, trying to be discreet. Soon he’s in the other room, hunched over a paper, extremely illegal pencil in hand.

“You really don’t sleep, do you citizen?” Carlos side-eyes Rookie as he approaches, a blanket wrapped and tied around his waist. He’s put the glasses and hat back on, as if that would keep Carlos from remembering what he looked like without them.

“I do,” Carlos replied, and he puts his hand over the paper. No doubt there was something heretical written there, even if he hadn’t meant to break the law. Carlos wasn’t some sort of felon. He followed the rules of science, and had never been one to have problems with, well, real police officers.

“You fooled me.”

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” Carlos snaps, and it forces a laugh from Rookie.

He plucks the pencil from Carlos’s hand, “Still using these, I see.”

Carlos sighs, still looking down at the paper and its mathematical symbols and formulas. “Rookie, por favor. Go back to bed. You could use the rest.” He reaches for the pencil, but Rookie sticks it in the makeshift waistband instead. Carlos picks up a pen, “I mean it. Please. Go back to bed.”

“The Voice told me something about explosives in the house,”

“Many things have the potential to explode. Like me. Go back to bed.”

“Just so we’re clear, citizen, you’re telling me to go back to bed, where The Voice is, and you are not? And I get the bed all to myself, with him?”

Carlos whips his head towards Rookie and opens his mouth to speak when he hears “CARLOS!” from the bedroom. Carlos is up in a flash and pushes past Rookie in order to get to Cecil. “Carlos where are you?!”

“I’m right here, I’m right here dulcito..!” Carlos rounds to the blond’s side of the bed and takes him into his arms, “Don’t worry, don’t worry I’m here… you’re safe. I’m right here.”

Rookie documents it all; Cecil’s desperate grasp on the Latin man, how Carlos lets him bury into the hollow of his neck, the soft sobs emerging from that perfect throat. There’s so much tension in static image; the press of them together, as if attempting to slide and fit like they were made for each other, the wrinkle in white material where Carlos’s brown hands press into lover’s back, comforting him, keeping him safe. Just looking at them, you could almost see the picture as the two making love. But it was far from it.

Cecil whimpers and the hold on Carlos tightens, “You said you would stay…”

“I was just doing a bit of work,” the scientist soothes, “I was right there in the next room… I promise, I wasn’t going anywhere.”

“Don’t _leave_ me,” Cecil whispers. Carlos goes silent and holds him close, simply nodding. “Don’t leave me, Carlos, I mean it.”

Rookie nearly butts in with something crude, but stops himself when Carlos says, “I’m going to get some work, okay? I can’t sleep. Rookie’s going to be right here too. He’s an officer after all. A good one. He won’t let anything happen to you while I get my calculator.”

A good one. It clangs around in Rookie’s head like a brass bell. A good one. What he did before was anything but. Now he was good. Was this good? Watching The Voice and a heretic talk, clinging to one another?

Cecil allows himself to be set on the bed. Carlos goes towards the next room, spying Rookie, hand on the doorframe. “Enjoy the show?” He asks, going towards his desk. Rookie just limps back over to the bed and sits. His ankle is still sore.

Carlos returns and Cecil is still waiting, eyes wide. The man brought a couple of papers, a clipboard, a calculator, and a pen. Nothing that would take up too much space, and nothing delicate. The Latino sits and lays the supplies down where he can reach them, favoring his arms to Cecil. “Shh,” he murmurs, “Hush dulcito…”

Rookie  narrows his eyes. Did Carlos always coddle The Voice this way? Then he’s humming a familiar song; something that was played on NVCR at some point. It was a song in Spanish. Had that been Carlos’s voice, truly? The scientist continues to hum and murmur the song to Cecil, glancing over at Rookie every once and a while. The officer just blinks and rests back into the blankets. Maybe the scientist’s voice wasn’t horrible, but it was nothing compared to The Voice himself. Certainly nothing worth noting.

Carlos presses some kisses to Cecil’s hair as the man loses consciousness again. After a few minutes of tense quiet, Rookie can hear his heart pumping. The officer closes his eyes, and tries to keep calm. The low decibel room hadn’t been so bad. Not bad at all. He could still hear every movement he made, every breath the other two took, but it hadn’t been so bad. No.

There’s a shift in the bed, and Carlos is holding some ace bandage. “Give me your leg, it looked like your ankle was sprained.”

Rookie surrenders it after a moment of thought, then watches as Carlos carefully winds and secures the stretchy fabric around his ankle. The bandage offers relief, if only on a mental level. It felt good to know that things were being taken care of.

Carlos sits up and continues his work, hand occasionally straying to pet or pat his lover as he slept. Rookie squinted at him through his glasses, but didn’t say a word. He didn’t want to chance waking The Voice. The officer closes his eyes for a bit, intending to rest. He deserved it. He went through the process and he was being rewarded by being close to The Voice. If only Carlos wasn’t in the way.

Then there’s a hand in his hair and it’s reflex to grab, but keeps himself from snapping it. “What are you doing.”

“Sh. Cecil likes it,” Carlos tells him. “Let go.”

“You’re coddling me.”

“You’ve been brutally injured and I feel responsible. Shut up Rookie, and let me.”

Cecil stirs and both of them freeze. Rookie breaks first, and loosens his grip. Carlos writes with one hand and smooths the other through Rookie’s short brown hair. The sensation is strange and unwelcome, but Rookie can’t find the strength of will to adjust, and Carlos didn’t seem to be concentrating on him anyway.

An hour passes, and Rookie’s eyes are heavy and the paper full or writing. The man sighs and leans over Cecil, placing his things on the nightstand, and rubs his eyes. Tired. Rookie can barely keep his eyes open. Carlos must think he’s asleep, because he takes off his own glasses, and then gently takes Rookie’s off. He sets the pairs on the nightstand on top of the clipboard, and Rookie shifts onto his side, looking towards the middle of the bed, where Carlos is.

Carlos looks at him as he gets under the comforter. All three of them together, and no one was killing anyone else. Good. That was some sort of progress. Rooke’s eyes readjust and train on the heretic, as if waiting for him to do something especially illegal. Carlos leans towards him and places a kiss on his head, “Try to sleep.”

It’s easy to sleep, but he doesn’t want to, not until the scientist is. The kiss burns on his skin and Rookie just barely registers in his mind that Brooks owed him twenty bucks. A kiss within the month that Carlos had started. He watches as Carlos’s hand ghosts over The Voice’s figure, resting in his side, rubbing his thumb gently against the blanket that separated them.

“...Suenas dulces, zorrito.”

Rookie turns over to face the outside of the bed, feeling Carlos radiate heat onto his back. But he does mumble a “Good night, citizen,” before letting his exhaustion overcome him, and he slips into a void of dreams.

 


End file.
